Best of Intentions – One State’s Drive to Slash GHGs Slams Into Reality, and Sends a Warning to Others

Five years ago, Vermont enacted a law requiring steep reductions in its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To help achieve that legally binding mandate, the state in 2023 approved a statute directing regulators to develop an incentives-based program under which heating oil and propane suppliers would drive households and businesses toward electric heat pumps, biodiesel and other lower-carbon space-heating alternatives. But regulators determined this year that the plan would be too costly and would hit Vermont’s many low-income residents the hardest. Now everything’s in limbo. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss what happened when the Green Mountain State’s good intentions encountered the realities of a major fuel initiative, and what Vermont’s experience implies for ambitious programs in other states.

Many would argue that Vermont is the quirkiest of the 50 states, with an independent streak a mile wide and — dear to our hearts here at RBN — a homegrown ice cream company with a penchant for naming many of its flavors after music and musicians (Cherry Garcia, Bohemian Raspberry and Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road, to name just a few). It’s certainly the snowiest state, with average annual snowfall of 90 inches (!), and one of the coldest (seventh overall, with an average winter temperature of 22°F). As locals put it in their own inimitable way, Vermont has four seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction — the last of these tied to the wear-and-tear from seemingly endless snowplowing and road-salting.

With all that cold weather and snow, it should come as no surprise that home heating is a major topic of conversation. Vermont is different here, too: Only 17% of the state’s homes (all of them in northwestern Vermont) have natural gas heat, compared to 46% of the U.S. as a whole, and a miniscule 10% of Vermont homes rely on electric heat (mostly heat pumps or electric baseboard), way below the 42% U.S. average. Instead, most Vermonters turn to either heating oil (36%), propane (20%; see photo below), or — far more than any other state — wood (14%). About 3% comes from other sources, including biodiesel derived from used cooking oil. (All stats are the latest available from the EIA.)